The Fruits of Diplomacy With Iran

Summary: The prospect of a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran in the next few months, if executed rigorously and embedded in wider strategies for regional order and global nuclear order, can be a significant turning point.

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In a perfect world, there would be no nuclear enrichment in Iran, and its existing enrichment facilities would be dismantled. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We can’t wish or bomb away the basic know-how and enrichment capability that Iran has developed. What we can do is sharply constrain it over a long duration, monitor it with unprecedented intrusiveness, and prevent the Iranian leadership from enriching material to weapons grade and building a bomb.

Those are the goals that have animated recent American diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear issue, including during the back-channel talks with Iran that I led in Oman and other quiet venues in 2013. Against a backdrop of 35 years without sustained diplomatic contact, filled with mutual suspicion and grievance, it was hardly surprising that our discussions were difficult, and our Iranian counterparts as tough-minded and skeptical as they were professionally skilled. But our efforts helped set the stage for the interim agreement, or Joint Plan of Action, concluded in November 2013.

Much maligned at the time, the J.P.O.A. has proved its value, freezing and rolling back Iran’s nuclear program for the first time in a decade, applying innovative inspections measures, allowing only modest sanctions relief and keeping substantial pressure on Iran.

The understanding announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday is an important step forward. Many crucial details still have to be resolved. But the understanding outlines a solid comprehensive agreement that would increase, for at least a decade, the time it would take Iran to enrich enough weapons-grade material for a single bomb from the current two-to-three-month timeline to at least one year. It would significantly reduce Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, substantially limit the country’s enrichment capacity and constrain Iranian research and development on more advanced centrifuges. And it would cut off Iran’s other possible pathways to a bomb, including by effectively eliminating Iran’s potential capacity to produce weapons-grade plutonium at its planned Arak reactor and banning enrichment at the underground Fordow facility for at least 15 years.

In addition to these significant limitations, we would create an inspection regime unparalleled in intensity, going well beyond current international standards and ensuring that any breakout effort would be quickly detected. Only a negotiated deal gets us the verification and monitoring we need to close off any covert path to a weapon.

Through carefully phased sanctions relief with built-in procedures to reimpose sanctions immediately in case of Iranian noncompliance, we would also preserve ample enforcement leverage. With more eyes on less material in fewer places, and clarity about the harsh costs of cheating, we would be well positioned to deter and prevent Iranian breakout.

As consequential as this understanding is, much more remains to be done. Three challenges loom largest.

The first is the most obvious and immediate: the difficult, painstaking work of negotiating the details of a comprehensive agreement. Rigorous execution of such an agreement will be a critical priority for this administration and its successor, and that will depend on the quality of its verification and enforcement provisions. There is no reason to rush this effort, especially given the continued freeze on Iran’s program under the J.P.O.A. What’s crucial is to get it right.

The second and third challenges are more long-term, but equally important. Completing this comprehensive nuclear accord with Iran must be one part of a cleareyed strategy for a Middle East in deep disarray. I do not assume that progress on the nuclear issue will lead anytime soon to relaxation of tensions with Tehran on other regional problems, or to normalization of United States-Iranian relations. Nor do I assume that the Iranian leadership will make an overnight transformation from a revolutionary, regionally disruptive force to a more “normal” role as another ambitious regional power.

That means we must work to reassure our partners in the region, whose concerns about both Iranian threats and the impact of a nuclear deal are palpable. We should urgently pursue new forms of security assurances and cooperation. Taking a firm stance against threatening Iranian actions in the region, from Syria to Yemen, not only shores up anxious longtime friends. It also is the best way to produce Iranian restraint, much as a firm stance on sanctions helped persuade Iran to reassess its nuclear strategy.

Similarly, it’s important to embed a comprehensive Iranian nuclear agreement in a wider effort to strengthen the global nuclear order. New inspection and monitoring measures applied through an Iran agreement may create useful future benchmarks. The Iranian problem has exposed significant vulnerabilities under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, especially the absence of a clear divide between civilian and military programs. The Iran case makes clear that the gray zone in the treaty between the right to use nuclear energy and the prohibition against manufacturing nuclear weapons is too wide. As nuclear technology and know-how become more diffuse and states turn to nuclear power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, building a sturdy firewall between military and peaceful activities will be an increasingly important task.

None of this will be easy. But the prospect of a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran in the next few months, if executed rigorously and embedded in wider strategies for regional order and global nuclear order, can be a significant turning point. It can also be a much-needed demonstration of the enduring value of diplomacy.

The history of the Iranian nuclear issue is littered with missed opportunities. It is a history in which fixation on the perfect crowded out the good, and in whose rearview mirror we can see deals that look a lot better now than they seemed then. With all its inevitable imperfections, we can’t afford to miss this one.

If the Iranian comments about the deal are correct its a bad deal. With disagreements on what Iran is in fact doing dispute resolution procedures become critical. Here Iran is meant to put on table such a formula --much like asking the neighborhood Fox to draw up plans for safeguarding the chickens. Furthermore the pathway for both technology transfers and purchases looks like an open invitation to cheat, steal, bribe and have Iran continue as it has done with NK, Russia, China and Pakistan re nuclear and missile technology. The NPT denies non-nuclear signatories no right to enrich. This agreement contradicts that and says to airman you have a right to enrich. The downside is this follows the path of the deal with the DPRK.

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shermaro

April 06, 201510:14 am

Shepherd seems to be saying we should not invite the other team to put a proposal on the table. That is, we should just negotiate with ourselves and our allies.
By thus giving ourselves 100% of the negotiations and decisions, we would ensure that we are 100% of the membership of an agreement without a purpose.

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The shepherd

April 07, 20159:33 am

Shepherd makes no such proposal
We have to keep front and center whom we are dealing with and that is a revolutionary and terrorist nation.
We also have significant diplomatic and economic leverage although much has been squandered in the period since the end of the Cold War
We are not using that leverage
Cutting off energy supplies to and from Iran is preferable to any military action should we want a visible lever to strengthen diplomacy
Iran has no need for any of this nuclear technology as it will be shuttered under the agreement except 5000 centrifuges
They cannot produce nuclear energy
They have said they might sell the enriched material
All their nuclear material and technology could simply be dismantled if they were serious about giving the world a sound sense they were not pursuing nuclear weapons
Finally the resolution of disputes if not done under some new arrangements not yet laid on the table will go directly to the UN and the Security Council which is how we got to where we are today
Which goes to the central point of many observers of the NPT that it is a crude forum for stopping a counrty determined to get nuclear weapons
As for nuclear weapons in Israel that counrty is not under the NPT
More dangerous are the nuclear stockpiles in Pakistan which had a huge terrorist supporting element in its government as well as what one critic called a nukes 'R us program previously run by Mr Khan
Negotiations are tough sometimes
On INF Reagan stuck to his zero-zero option which the same enthusiasts for the Iran framework opposed and ridiculed
They claimed the INF was unfair to the Soviets which of course it was! That was the point!
Our talks with Iran are meant to end their quest for nuclear weapons not make them celebrate their ability to enrich uranium or build medical isotopes. The entire Iran nuclear infrastructure remains intact with some minor modifications but no discolure of their nuclear military related work
IAEA gets to monitor Iran's stuff
Yes as they have so successfully for the past 30+ years
Disclosures historically have come from opponents of the regime and people riskimg their lives to tell the world the truth
Who will tell us the truth under this deal? The mullahs?

Refer to the comments made today by Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. No ambiguity there, nor any need for a counter point. Iran has no intention of following any agreement. They want the bomb. They want to be the major power in the Mideast. They will not be satisfied until these two things can happen and Israel can be - to use their words - "wiped from the map".

Burns says "It is a history in which fixation on the perfect crowded out the good, and in whose rearview mirror we can see deals that look a lot better now than they seemed then."
--- Profound thought, very well put. But American security is endangered by commentators who express hateful partisanship rather than reasoned analysis.

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Mel Goodman

April 06, 201511:44 am

Any discussion of regional order and global nuclear order should include some reference to Israel's nuclear program and its 200 nuclear weapons and/or devices, and the need to press for NPT membership for such nuclear powers as Israel, Pakistan, and India.

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The shepherd

April 07, 20159:42 am

Mel Goodman again finds a reason to "blame the Jews" for Iran's nuclear program.
Israel has been attacked non stop since its founding from outright war to terrorist attacks
Iran fought Iraq for the 1979-1989 period largely by lobbing missiles at each other although both nations continued their terrorist activities.
Since then Iran has been complicit in Khobar Towers and the attacks on our embassies in Africa and according to the 9-11 Commission were involved in the attacks of 9-11 as well as attacks on US soldiers in Lebanon and subsequently Iraq and Afghanistan.
Getting rid of Israel's nuclear weapons would make it safe to attack israel with conventional weapons
Ironically Israel with nuclear weapons has not led a single Arab nation to build nukes except Libya though the motives for that program is not clear
Nations committed to murdering and destroying its enemies as opposed to deterring them is a serous serious threat. Goodman fails that test of common sense.

Why is everything one sided? What about Israel's nuclear facilities and weapons? When will those be addressed? What about KSA Gulf States support for Takfiri groups such as ISIS (Daesh) and Al-Qaeda? These groups are well supported by KSA and Gulf States. Notice in Yemen, KSA bombs Houthis (Shias) and Yemeni Army (Sunni), but leaves Al-Qaeda (Takfiris) alone.

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John Stucker

April 09, 20154:40 pm

Last month it was Andrew Weiss with his brilliant characterization of Putin the tap dancer - The Improvisor. Now you have succinctly explained that 3+ decades of experience can NOT prevent us from a deal w/ Iran. And maybe it leads to more, if we keep out eye on the prize. thanx, j.

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manooch kargar

April 10, 20155:16 am

surprised at writer, In a perfect would be no nuclear enrichment in Iran who hasn't got the bomb or In a perfect world, there would be no nuclear apartheid land grabbing terrorist israel with 300 bombs

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